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That would be Blair, the creative force behind the highly entertaining blog known as The Shameful Sheep. I’d provide the link here if I knew how, but I think that would also require a WordPress upgrade and frankly, I just don’t wanna. You see, WordPress and I seem to be drifting apart lately. Commitment issues. But Google TheShamefulSheep.com and enjoy the literary ride.

While I’ve never actually communed with Blair one-on-one, I think we’re somewhat alike. It appears we view the world lit from a lightbulb of similar wattage. We’ve followed each others blogs, liked each others’posts and based on her writing style, I’d say we’d probably laugh at the same dick jokes.

While reading one of her posts recently, I noticed she was posed some questions to answer, so she then challenged her readers to do the same. Yeah, I know, it’s an old blogging chestnut, but to quote Poco, “When it’s all you’ve got– call it love” and frankly, I’m bored with politics and I’ve scorned whiney millenials and third wave campus feminists enough—this week—so, I thought what the hell, I’ll answer her questions and then some.

They are as follows, in no particular order:

1. Think of the person you dislike the most in this world. If you had the ability to force them to eat a full plate of anything you wanted, what would it be?

I strongly dislike poseurs with extremely vague pedigreees. Don’t claim privacy when refusing to answer probing questions on a blog in which you use your real name. That said, I would invite those on thatbparticular shit list to a banquet facility where a meal of braised ocelot rectum and capers would be served on a bed of lice pilaf. That would be followed by much needed vinegar and water boarding.

NEXT!!!!!!!

2. What do you have an irrational fear of?

I have become more claustrophobic in my later years. MRIs require total sedation but my most irrrational fear of all would be sitting in front of an open windows at night.

It was 1976 and my boyfriend at the time, got me into horror flicks. Not so much the ones about ghosts and monsters, but about the ultimate thematic conflict, man vs. man. We saw this particular movie entitled, The Town That Freaded Sundown. It’s based on a true story about the still unsolved post WWII “Phantom Murders” in Texarkana. A hooded figure would attack high school kids “parking” as we used to say, on darkened backroads and in the woods late at night. It was rather formulaic: he’d kill the guy first, then rape the woman, then kill her in brutal fashion. This had to happen a few times until the kids In Texarkana realized that going out and necking could be fatal. A curfew was imposed, so let’s just say a lot of palms grew hairy that fateful spring in Texarkana.

Speaking of, this moratorium forces the killer’s hand. He has to sate to his murderous appetite by moving from the boonies into Texarkana proper. So, he walks up to a house and the killer shoots Pa through the open window, then Ma gets shot in the face through an open kitchen window. And for some reason, those scenes have bothered me ever since. I’ve visited people who lived in in hi-rises and I’m talking upper floors ya’ll, and I couldn’t sit or stand in front of an open window after dark.

3. You’re going out to dinner tonight – what type of restaurant are you going to? Mexican? Chinese? American? Italian?

I like food from the many countries up and down the Mediterranean. I also like good Chinese and Vietnamese food. But if specifics are required for tonight’s fare, since I’ve been trying to diet, I’d probably choose Chinese. But on a good bulemic night, rife with self loathing, I’d choose all four restaurants. Seriously. I would….and I have.

4. If you’re a blogger – do you have aspirations of writing a book at some point?

Yes, of course. I’be been writing two separate screenplays in my head for a decade now. One is loosely based on my capicious three decade career in Broadcasting (the “other” magical misery tour”) and the second book or screenplay would focus on my gregarious maternal grandmother who loved fire engine red fingernails and wearing diamonds during the daytime. ”Twas absokutely scandalous in small town South Texas circa 1963.

5. You’re given an unlimited amount of money by Daddy Warbucks. The only stipulation is it must be spent on a dream you’ve had. What is that dream?

Hhhhhmmmmm…..if it was the slumber induced nightmare I had about Dennis Cucinic and Marla Maples’ uvula during horah in Minsk, then I’ll pass, but if you mean the dream in which I’ve had since childhood about encapsulating the first giddy months of love in pill form, then yeah, I’d shove a shit ton of dough in front of some Big Pharma CEO and say make it happen, Papi!

6. What are you really good at?

I have failing at LOVE down to a science. If one can fail well than I’ve been felled very well by failing. On an up note, I do know which wine goes best with Xanax and chateaubriand.

7. What have you never learned to do?

I know nothing about auto mechanics, I don’t how to play a trombone, figure out how the role lift and thrust play in flight and I’ve never taken the time to find out if Nero ever took violin lessons.

And gravity. I’ve never understood how that works. Or why Bruce Willis still is.

The second presidential debate is now history. I refused to watch it, because had I done so, my death would have been imminent. You see, I have no patience and intense short-fuse rage issues these days. The culprit is an abscessed “wisdom” tooth which has to be treated with antibiotics before the wretched thing can be pulled. Proximity to the brain, dontcha know.

Pain above the neck is acknowledged through a short, very direct route to the brain. Below the neck, it all has to go through the spinal chord. Make no mistake, if I stepped on a nail. I’d feel it immediately, but feeling the intensity can be slightly muted by distance, mere inches in some scenarios. As my layperson’s mind perceives it, it could be compared to booking a non stop flight versus one with a lengthy layover in Denver. There’s always a layover in Denver.

I finally got tired of burping up insane amounts of oral pain gels and faced my fears and went to my dentist, an occupation that has scared me since seeing The Marathon Man as a kid. The kindly dentist took X-rays which revealed I had a rather odd wisdom tooth that was quite infected. He knew it was painful. I confirmed that it was. I was quietly praying for a script of Fentanyl; he suggested Naproxen.

I have to wait three more days for it to be pulled. I’ve had a migraine, an earache, a sore throat and as mentioned, rage issues for the past week and a half. Chronic pain, which I’ve lived with daily since a car accident on 1991, can wear on your heart and soul. I was precribed an antibiotic which began working, but I only felt its defense forces for the first time this afternoon. It was only then that I had an appetite, could chew and be civil. It was the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to yell at those pesky kids to get off my lawn, even though I have no lawn and I live in a gated community. I’m the youngest homeowner here and I’m still south of 60. I can remember “Let’s Make A Deal” while my mostly senior neighbors can barely recall Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Age schism. And many of my neighbors are of the nosey, gossipy variety, who hate my dog’s entire elimination system. I responsible in that I pick up where he leaves off, but I’ve been written up in the past and for another pet owner’s lack of duty regarding dog doodie.

Pets are barely tolerated, but I’m afraid children aren’t allowed here. Of course, no where is that mentioned anywhere in the contract with the builder or in the HOA by-laws because well, it’s completely Illegal, but here, I get the sense it’s unspoken. If there are any local kids missing, authorities might want to check out some of my neighbors. I walked by one house recently and got a strong whif of gingerbread.

I’ll move soon, and rebuild and do as the late John Denver once warbled, come home to a place I’ve never been before. Like an old Etch-A-Sketch from my childhood, I’ll erase a good part of my past. Well, maybe not erase, but I’ll make the bad stuff of memories far less retrievable.

Here’s a tip for you: when God…the Universe….Putin tells you over and over again, your life and everything in it isn’t working, acknowledge it don’t ignore as I did, cut your losses and run, don’t walk to the nearest exit. Don’t sit there hoping things will change as you maintain the same currupted mindset that only served a purpose when climbing the ladder, not while stowing it away. Minding these no so subtle cues often means leaving what’s familiar, but not necessarily healthy. Taking it further, it also means excising certain people from your past, not because they’re bad, but because one or both of you have changed to the point nothing in the relationship is salvageable. These are people I once knew from my childhood, a million years ago, from cities large and small, a million miles away. Depending on perception, we were victims and/or the fortunate ones to be where we were, when we were. But nothing lasts, nothing is static. Many people remain loyal to things which they have every right to do, but these are things I can no longer believe in, creating a schism of a different kind.

I’ve recently spoken with some people in the psychiatric world about the changes I feel within and around me. I wanted to know if this need to separate who I am with who and what I was is normal, given all my circumstances. They each replied in their own ways, assuring me that shedding is perfectly normal and natural. Dogs do, it; as evidenced by the fur on everything in my house, cats do it and people do it. We shed dead skin cells to make way for newer, healthier ones. The White Coats say what really matters is what’s really about the intention behind the mental aspects of shedding. Makes sense, so I’ve thought about, lost sleep over it, allowed guilt to eat at my being and arrived at this point. It’s time to remove things, leave things, and think differently about things because for me, it was and continues to be in in my best interests to move forward and stop looking back. I had to remove myself from the things that hurt; which had become painful; which to due to impulse, neediness and bad choices, I allowed to become painful.

It starts off kind of where last week’s show left off, but not exactly. Last week’s show ended with Shelby is running amuck in the woods in pursuit of Kathy Bates’ character who literally bounced off Shel’s car when she was trying to escape the house. She gets lost and is confronted by a man with the top part of his head missing; he sees her and falls to her knees. The end.

This weeks show starts of with her still lost in the woods but she walks upon a crucifixion or purification scene in which. The scalped man is tied and nailed, chest first to a much larger version of one of those Blair Witch looking twig figurines we we were introduced to last week. Kathy Bates’ character is the head of this puritanical coven, is it?…. and she has has Igor hunchback counterpart which looked something like Lady Gaga in bloody make up. And whoever or whatever this person represents she’s egging on Kathy Bates’ urging of these angry, torch welding phantasmas. He died something illegal with a pig and the villagers slap on pig’s head (a fresh kill by the looks of it) and then he’s not crucified, rather large figurine is turned into a spit and the man is burned alive.

Shelby screams, allerting Kathy Bates and company to her presence, a chase ensues and Shelby runs into the driveway and almost into a car, driven by her sister in law, Lee.

Shelby is rushed to the hospital and checked out. She’s okay. Matt comes to see her; tells her that the cops were called…once again…searched the woods and found nothing. They are becoming a total pain in the ass for this local jurisdiction. Anyway, Shelby still thinks its the local yokel inbreds who placed a low bid on the house during episode one.

Lee decides she wants to see her daughter, Flora. So the eight year old ones for a weekend visit and of course immediately, befriends a ghost bonnet wearing ghost child named Priscilla Flora who during a game of hide and seek at the end of her visit, tells her that she’ll kill everyone in the house, and keep Flora alive until the very ends. This enrages Isaac Hayes who has come back from the grave to play Lee’s ex-husband who wants total custody of the child, due to Lees/ boozing fired cop way. He takes Flora off in a heart wrenching good bye scene….child screaming for her mother, mother screaming for her child. Then Lee falls off the wagon and drinks all night long. Matt and Shelby awaken to the all too familiar sound of glass breaking. It’s Flora in the dining room just coming off her bender she’s drunkenly broken a bowl. Everyone looks up and there are knives thrown into the ceiling. Matt and Shelby assume Lee did that, too, but she denied it. Matt takes her upstairs to sleep off the rest of it. She’s awaked a few hours later the image of two 60’s looking nurses staring at her in bed. She shakes her head. They’re gone. Then she hears a noise….runs towards it anyone scared shitless is inclined to do and she sees a bunch of blood pig tails nailed into the wall. She shakes her head. They’re gone. She looks into a mirror and sees the man with the pig head on coming towards her. Again, she shakes her head and he’s gone and apparently Lee is gone too because we don’t see her for a while. More on Lee in a sec.

Its the middle of the night and Matt and Shelby are sleeping. we hear a phone ringing. Loudly. Shelby sleeps through it, but Matt but go down three flights of stares to answer a desk phone that was outdated in 1985. On the other end is a woman moaning. He looks down and sees the phone isn’t even connected to the wall outlet. Then, the moans start coming from the kitchen. Matt turns around and sees a residual haunting of when the house was a senior care facility decade earlier. He sees are the same two nurses that Lee saw by her bed, that Shelby saw cross the hall in front of her that, that went unmentioned in the last last episode. They are oblivious to his presence and they stand around a bed with an elderly woman in it, refusing to take her medicine. One nurse accuses the patient of having a sassy nought so she pulls out a handgun and shoots granny right between the eyes. This elates the sisters who revel in the fact that the patient’s name was Margaret, so they gleefully spray paint a large M on the wall.

The cops are called. Nothing is there. The ugly wall paper chosen to refurbish the house is undisturbed. Matt, says the officer, had to have been having a vivid dream.

Then the next night, they are awakened once again to the sound of that damn pig. Shelby and Matt grab his and hers flashlights and head into the wooded acreage that came with the house, in search of a pig. They get separated and a pig comes out of no where and runs by Matt’s feet and he says nothing. They meet up once again to find the greasy, dripping, gross remnants of the grilled man….but no Kathy Bates lead villagers. The cops were called once again , but this time, the cops see the remnants, but they also think its the handiwork of Papa Hayseed, Ishmael Polk and his odd progeny.

Then one afternoon, Matt and Shelby are looking outside and see a pilgrim looking woman standing there. They of course, run our to see who o what she really is and there’s nothing there, but she was standing on the entrance to a fruit cellar. What do they do? Run down the step ladder and into the old cellar, which is oddly free of cobwebs, spiders and or critters. All they find is a video camera. They take it to their VCR and play it. Its an extreme close up of bearded Denis LO’Hare portraying a academic and author, namedDr. Elias Cunningham, who lived in the house in order to write a Charles Mansonesque murder mystery, based on a pair of pure sisters who were homicidal sociopaths. They took pleasure in killing off old people that had become a burden to their families.

Sad.

Dr. Cunningham explains in the tape that the women only took boarders whose first names could spell out one word M-U-R-D-E-R. But they hadn’t gotten to the R yet. It was just MURDE. And apparently, the five letters couldn’t be covered top by paint, so we see extras placing ugly green floral wall paper over it. The professor on the tape says there are demonic things happening in the house and that he’d been in the fruit cellar for days and didn’t want to step foot back in the house, but somehow, he finds the courage and takes his camera with him. He walks through the darkened youse, demanding that whatever is in the house show itself, well, it does…in a big way.

Think “The Ring”. I know….I don’t get it either.

Matt and Shelby freak and call the bank wanting their money back. A representative comes to meet them . They accuse him of nondisclosure, regarding specific aspects of the house’s past. He claims he’s no real estate agent and can’t help them; the house is theirs until they choose to sell.

So, they’re stuck with the house and the pig noises and Kathy Bates who only roasts by night.

Oh yeah and Lee kidnaps her daughter and brings her back to the house. Really?

There are a couple of other things I should add. A bloodied meat clever is left in their front door and yet another window is broken. It takes down a vase filled with flowers in and mixed with all the flora is a small dirty bonnet….described by the human Flora, who’s new imaginary friend Priscilla said she’d make for her, IF she helped Priscilla stop.

Stop what, we ask.

Flora explains “all the blood”.

Later, we learn that Lee has kidnaped Flora and brought her back to the house and the episodes ends with Flora running into the forrest, at the behest of a ghostly John Smith looking mother fella. Matt, Lee and Shelby run after her and they find her yellow sweater tied atop a newly de-branched tree….a very tall tree….with no sight of young Flora anywhere.

This episode? Intriguing to make me look forward to episode 3 next week.

Now, there are still major plot holes, and scary things that happen this couple won’t tell people., much less each other. I’m finding if I watch this show as a civilian and throw logic out the window one of the few windows unbroken in the house. And don’t I wish I were the window and glass purveyor in that vicinity. And lastly, we do know that they, whoever they are, are looking to kill someone who’s name begins with an R to complete the word “murder” which lies behind wall paper that’s the easiest to remove in the history of mankind.

As for Lady Gaga character as the Igor character? Maybe I’m right. Gaga’s name was featured as a guest star in the closing credits. Now, I don’t know if that means that she’s there as part of the general cast or if it was specific to this episode, but it was there.

I still think a lot about 9/11, the day that changed the world. Some would say evil showed its ugly face on that day in the form of four hijacked 757s;. less patriotic types might say America had it coming, especially on her own soil. Others don’t care–it didn’t happen to them personally and still others mourn the loss of humanity.

Fifteen years has flown by. Since that time, so many people have been born, so many have died. What happened on 9/11 to some kids born since then might have the same affect on them as the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination has on my generation. It happened at Ford’s Theater, I know…in April, I think.

I was four when John Kennedy was killed. I didn’t exactly understand the politics involved or the motives, but I knew a bad man didn’t like him enough to kill him and didn’t care how Caroline or John John felt about it. That’s how I saw it, I related to my fellow children. That’s how my four year old mind grasped that November day.

Fifty-three years later and I’m not sure I understand anything better than I did back in 1963 or in 2001. It was hate that bought the planes down, three took buildings with it. It was hate that killed JFK and hate that killed that black kid or that white kid or that murdered Asian doctor, the Palestinian college student or the Jewish merchant who’d been stabbed in the streets of Jerusalem.. Hell, if you want to be specific, hate even killed Osama bin Laden.

Or does it make a difference because ‘we’ hated bin Laden; united by a very strong emotion?

Well, September 11th, the marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, the USS Cole all happened because somebody hated Western ideals. Were we attacked by the same united hatred , but in this case, it was hatred for us For America.

I could recall terroristic tragedies that happened even longer ago, but admittedly, things get a little hazy after anything relative to Archduke Ferdinand’s murder.

I had a thought recently….the kind that would enter our gray matter after smoking some great weed. What if God as we know it was really this massive alien or aliens and we were all put here for their amusement like Ceasar, the lions, and the Christians in the colosseum????. Violence being more sport than horror.

Sun Tzu (I think) believed that everything comes down to war. It’s the basic organizing factor of every society. Well yeah, how can you know peace without knowing war? Just think about it, somewhere at any given time on this planet, there are warring factors. From an organized militia, to ragtag guerrillas fighting in rain forests to football rivals facing each other every weekend in the fall. Defense. Offense. Its the strategy of everything.

Is life just one big power play?

It feels like it is sometimes. Who has the gold? Who’s the king of the mountain?. You hear stories about Wall Street tycoons or the star makers in Hollywood who get the biggest thrills of their lives simply by fucking someone over a deal.

And don’t get me started on free will. I think about the passengers on board the hijacked planes or the people who went to work at the Pentagon or either WTC tower that Tuesday morning. They didn’t believe they’d wake up that morning to die. But 19 radical America hating Muslim zealots had different plans for them. And then on United Flight 93, The Free Will of Man that existed on that plane became a tug of war. Everyone on board knew they were going to die and like the jumpers on the burning floors of the towers, they received the ultimate Sophie’s Choice—-they got to chose how they’d die. Again, I shake my head.

I don’t know. I’m told that to try to understand God is feeble. We’re not meant to understand God. Well frankly, that sounds just a little too convenient for me. Tolerance is more relevant than love and I can’t and won’t judge who or what you believe. we must tolerate each others others different beliefs and yrs, even our doubts. I know this; a power far bigger than me exists, I’ve felt it; I’ve seen it in action minus the angelic choir in the background and while I’d admit an existence, exactly how and why this entity operates as it does confuses the hell out of me.

Yes, the old Laur will have traipsed Ms. Buck’s ‘Good Earth’ for 57 years. Hard to believe. It’s been an interesting 57 jam packed years filled with amazing life experiences so incredibly groovy and so horrible, they could reanimate Buddy Ebsen.

And some years could’ve inspired Dante.

Good and bad were and are always present, just at different times for different purple.

I keep getting asked what I want this year. My answer is nothing. Im reminded that everyday I spend above ground is a treat and I am grateful. And I want other things like global love, world peace , equality, no more profiteering from war and all the other typical Miss America Q&A response shit. But my passion for al these things are waning. Im hardly as passionate about any of it as I used to be. I mean, I’m not willing to burn the flag, my haggard bra or my AARP card in protest. I protest with my wallet now. For example, If I don’t like how little Dole pays its pickers, I don’t buy their pineapples.

And I used to think college protestors who burned the ROTC building or overtook the dean’s office were cool. Today, I think they’re criminals. To have youthful idealism is womderful, but keep it within a reality based perspective. Everything must change. Like elongated boobs that were once taught and perky but now hold a tray of canapes. They’ve changed. Everything changes. Life is about change and how we changed with the changes forced upon us.is

My whole family consists of pre-Clinton Democrats. They aren’t now. I used to be a blond. The every increasing streaks of grey amid the dark roots prove I’m not that not that much of a liar.. My tolerance has changed. And I’m now far more confrontational. If I see an ininjustice, I’ll say something. If one is perpetuated against me, God help the perpetrator. If warranted, I’ll use what few good bones I have left left in my leg aim directly at the crotch. Any crotch.. A grocery cart rolled into my car recently. You know that plastic sign in the side insisting that all children be” carefully strapped” in seats??

The cart now has a huge ding between the reo ‘Ps’.

As for turning 57, my brain is now taking orders from my body more than my brain, I had a nasty car accident 27 years ago and broke 11 bones, so my brain gets overridden quite a bit. Moving really isn’t all that easy and the accompanying chronic pain is no picnic but if strong enough, you learn to live with your newfound abilities..

So….I guess what I’ll do my BD do is wake up that morning, take a post wake up nap, scratch whatever itches—-bathing will be based on a coin flip, check FOX News to see who blew what up, then go my almost 86 year old mother’s house and stare at her third and final caesarean section scar for 57 seconds as she reminds me how painful my birth was. Her memory wanes. I keep telling her she did not have me vaginally. She insists she did and seems to recall the spinal block injection that numbed everything below her waist was just a mosquito bite.

I’ll just sit there and agree with her, then make an apology for my painful birth she never felt, but that’ll fall on deaf ears. As in literal deaf ears.

Then I hope I go back to my house sans people trying to hide behind furniture to surprise me, then I’ll light a votive candle and make the same 51 year old birthday wish I always make. It won’t come true, but after 57 years it’s become a habit. I can always hope.

Look, I know this makes me out you be a cynic, pessimistic and jaded. Don’t get me wrong. Life is okay. I go out early on clear Central Texas morning and see stars that I just know are looking back at me and only me. I’l be thankful that while my boobs a do look WWII issue German hand grenades, they’re both healthy. Ill smile because I’m NOT a mother of five in Mexico who struggles to feed her children. Then I’ll smile even bigger becsuse I can write a check to a charity that can help her her get all the food she needs.

So yeah, , I’ll 57 in a less than week. Sure I’ve hardened; gotten older, colder and in the process of being happy to be bored, perfectly ok with being alone, even being more intolerant of certain things, I’ll,be okay, All those things, as unpleasant as they might be, means I’m alive.

But you know what? On second thought, I do want something, but good damn luck trying to wrap it in a box, because all I want is some time back. I want the time….just enough time to express my gratitude for all the things and people in my life.

She was begging for votes the other day, not cool for a Clinton for m everything always seems go swimmingly. Or so it would appear. Hill even toted out Madeline Albright as a shill. Really? Most of the younger voters she so covets weren’t even born when Maddie was wearing ugly broaches in prime time.

So, is Hillary’s campaign in crisis? Well kids, I’m really not qualified to opine, BUT as a former broadcast journalist with 30 years in the trenches, I can recognize fear in someone’s eyes.

And what’s scaring Hillary her is an older, rather frail, balding, hunchbacked zayde of a man. No, not her husband, Bill Clinton.

It’s Bernie Sanders.

I watch his campaign stumps and notice the audience, filled with 20-somethings all gacked out on this age appropriate idealism. My first instinct is to tell them, enjoy it now.

I was only four when President John Kennedy was killed, but I’m something of an assassination buff and have spent a lot of time reading and You-Tubing his life. His audiences remind me of those who clamor for The Bern. Kennedy won because he wasn’t Dwight Eisenhauer. It didn’t hurt that he was young and handsome when compared to those who held the office before him. He had a well-heeled young wife who loved art and history and couture. Her style was mind blowing in her time. Together, they had two cute young kids. He came from a large family who was already storied back in 1963. He also had dreams and goals and that spoke to baby boomers, most just entering the legal age to vote.

I see the same zeal in Bernie zealots. Personally, I’m too jaded to believe all that Sanders is feeding his minions. Over the years, I’ve heard all the campaign promises and my lifetime, I think the ONLY president that ever kept a real, campaign promise was Lyndon Johnson. He established the Great Society which in part, gave all of our Black brothers and sisters the right to vote without suppression of any kind.

Hillary can beg to differ but she is establishment and her audience it seems, reflects thst. They appear to be mostly older females. I don’t chide these broads. They’re not that much older than me and they were probably the first ones to burn their bras while freely burning a big fattie. These women were gender suffragettes during the ERA years. I respect them, but Hillary can’t win with this demographic. Even when her husband comes out swinging. As I mentioned above, is Cltinon version 5.0. He’s not that much younger than Bernie and he looks it. In Texas, we say “he looks road hard and hung up wet”. Then again, nothing ages you more than eight years in the Oval Office. Take one look at Obama’s ever-growing jowels.

To me, the vocal minority of Trump fans seem to be blue collar white guys. Late 40’s and up. Lots of gimme caps.

Rubio’s fan-base? Looks mixed to me.

Bush? I glance at is audience and it appears to be comprised of older people who are mostly pale skinned. If younger, they’re preppies.

Cruz? See above.

Kasich, Fiorina and Dr. Ben? To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen any coverage of their events to opine.

So, let’s segue to the candidates’ religions. Not that it matters, but I’ll make a point about that in a bit. Trump is Christian, Hillary is Mathodist. Kasich is Anglican. Dr. Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist. Fiorina is currently a non-dnominational Christian. Cruz is an Evangelical with Southern Baptist ties. Bush, Rubio and Christie are Catholic and Bernie Sanders is the first Jewish contender for president. Now, this makes for some interesting dissonance–Bernie is married to a non-Jewish woman, which according to Jewish law, makes his grandchildren non-Jewish. Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism before getting married, making his grandchildren Jewish.

Fortunately for most thinking people, religion today is a sidebar within a footnote. Now, what candidates believe has become more more important than how they practice their beliefsis. We’ve certainly evolved as an electorate since 1960. That’s when Kennedy ran against Nixon and won, making him the very first Catholic elected into executive office and it didn’t come without bigoted drama. There were a lot of people who were actually scared of any political repercussions due to Kennedys perceived links to The Vatican.

Political commentary will appear shortly. I must start this post with a comment about one of the under-moderators and one of the candidates particularly and all of them, generally. These comments come from from a purely broadcasting POV.

1)–Josh McElveen, is a Political Director or Reporter, probably both at a station in the tiny TV market of Manchester, NH. Did you hear him speak? A slightly more masculine version of Greta van Sustern, hand to God. He swallowed every suffix. I had a hard time understanding him.

2–Will someone in Gov. Chris Christie’s campaign PLEASE teach him something/anything about popping his “P’s” into the microphone??? It’s annoying on a Karsahsian level. And here’s a hint for every candidate and amplifted public speaker in the world–please understand the sensitivity of the microphones and how pounding points home on the podiums (pop THAT Christie!!) are audible through the mics. Oy, I’ve heard less thumping and pounding in the rap music the all the kids today seem to love. It was as if Snoop MC Cool Ice moved in next door.

Sorry…I watched Larry David host Saturday Night Live.

So, on a serious, more goyish note, I’d have to say Marco Rubio lost the debate as much Christie won it. The Jersey Boy was on a mission and needed to win the debate as much as Peyton Manning wants another certain gold ring. Watching Rubio’s repetitive use of the Obama phrase on a continuous loop, is painful to watch. FOX News has been skewering him. Despite his microphone and pronunciation issues, I’ve always liked Christie, but prior to Saturday night’s debate, it was never enough for me to vote for him. He’s winning me over.

I was supporting Rubio, but during the broadcast, I could clearly see his Boy Scout milk mustache on his upper lip. The child needs more political seasoning. I feel that the 2020’s will be his decade.

Bush? Nice guy I suppose, but his last name is a burden in this political climate and yeah, I voted for his brother…twice.

Cruz? Meh.

Kasich? Dr. Ben? Fiorina? The Professor and Mary Ann? Footnotes.

Trump? Liked him too—in the beginning when his shtick was novel. But it’s growing tiresome. I’m losing my political patience as I get older and Trump’s behavior and comments have become cringeworthy for me. As for his popularity on the Internet, online searches and debate results polls? I’m a Republican, but I’ll admit, his incessant perch high atop the American political consciousness reminds me how the unshorn, creepy Sanjay surged to 7th place on the sixth season of American Idol.

Sanjay probably did it old school back in 2009, but hey, having the financial access to all the latest campaign hardware ever made is worth the investment.